Payback

77

Karr swung around as the light in the barn came on, but there was no one at the doors.

He pulled off the glasses, leaping back to his rucksack and grabbing his submachine gun.

“Lights are on here,” he told Chafetz in the Art Room. “Must be some sort of timing circuit.”

“In a barn, Tommy?”

“Good point. Anybody outside?”

“Negative.”

Karr pulled his bag with him to the trapdoor. He was thinking about using it as a hiding place when he realized there was light coming through the cracks from below.

“OK, now I think I know what’s going on,” he told Chafetz. “This is a tunnel to the house. Somebody must be coming.”

“Then get out of there.”

“And miss all the excitement?”

Karr pulled his pack on his back so he wouldn’t have to worry about retrieving it if he had to retreat. Then he stepped behind the hinge to the door, so he could surprise whoever was coming out A minute later, the door creaked, and the metal swung upward slowly. Karr waited a second, then pitched his arms back, wielding the submachine gun like a club.

He stopped it just short of the small gray-haired skull that popped into the opening.

“Whoa!” said Karr, reaching down and grabbing the diminutive woman from the stairwell. He threw her aside, then scrambled over the opening.

The tunnel, its sides lined with closely fitted stones, was empty. Karr ran down about halfway and stopped. He took a video bug from his pocket and slapped it onto the tunnel ceiling, barely six inches above his head. Then he trotted back up the steps. The woman lay in a heap on the floor, still dazed.

“Jeez, I’m sorry, ma‘am,” he said, raising her head and trying to revive her. “Scusa. Like, really, I’m sorry. You all right? Ma’am?”

The woman opened her eyes, then jerked back in fright.

“Oh man, I’m really sorry. It’s OK,” he said. He slung the gun over his shoulder and pulled her up. “Chafetz, get those translators online here. Help me out. This poor old lady looks like she saw a ghost.”